Verse 1

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
mount of God’s redeeming love.

Verse 3

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.

There is much that is similar in the texts for this piece and “O God Beyond All Praising” which I looked at last week. I think that is appropriate as both songs were chosen for our wedding to bring focus on God and our reliance on Him, something we wanted to be a part of our marriage from day one.

But there is a theme in Come Thou Fount that I wanted to look at this week: our tendency to wander. The song up to this line in the third verse is filled with a great message: we need God to be able to experience and rightly praise God. The song is one of reliance on Him because He is the only one equipped to do the things He asks. So, after all of this confession and praise, pointing out God as the source of their faithfulness, the hymn sets up the reason for that need and later presents a solution.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;”

It strikes all of us from time to time, this urge to wander. It may come physically wandering, avoiding the places we ought to be and frequenting those we should be avoiding. It may come in the utilization of our gifts, exercising them with pride instead of humility. Or, as is most likely in my instance, it comes as our thoughts wander, leaving the things of God and settling in the depths of the lost. I think we tend to do this because it feels safer, not satisfying, and immediately pays off. But no matter why, it is wandering, and the more we do it, the farther we stray.

“Here’s my heart, o take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”

The lyrics give us the first component of the solution to this dilemma: realizing we aren’t in control and surrendering to the one who is. What the song speaks to, but never explicitly states is God’s response and promise which follows such a request. God doesn’t just let us wander alone after that. Sure, we may still veer off the path time to time, but the promise is that we don’t have to try and find God again; He never leaves us. He has sealed our hearts, never to wander off as we do. His love is perfect and eternal, which is why He helps us fulfill His commands, and never leaves our side in the process.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran